Review: MISS FORTUNATE, VAULT Festival

Molly loses her mum when she's 21. Actually, she knows where her mother is, she is inside a box at the crematorium. With razor-sharp humour and the cheek to go with it, Miss Fortunate is a personal journey through insecurity and grief to the acceptance of life's disruptions rooted in Molly O'Shea's real-life experience.

Directed by Oliver Dawe, the show introduces two sides of the story: in one, the protagonist is a naïve young woman who meets a boy at her mum's funeral and who sees people through rose-coloured glasses; the other, that stands on the opposite end of the spectrum of positivity, is delivered by a seemingly older O'Shea who uses cynicism and misanthropy as a shield.

It's when the two come together and find peace within each other that the play finally pierces through to deliver all the heartache and pain it's been truly harbouring. The peculiar scene changes are carried out by her stage partner until O'Shea takes hold of the narrative and fully starts to own her spaces.

She details the struggle of being an "adult orphan" and talks about the "circumstances of [her] existence" laterally with corrosive jokes that gradually uncover her heart. She's captivating in her retelling as she immediately puts up her defences to fend off the world.

Her attitude to sex and the destructive coping mechanisms she employs work together and conceal her painful vulnerability. Struggling to accept her feelings and fears, she understands that a certain openness is needed (if not demanded of her) in order to come to terms with her mother's death and for her wounds start to heal.

A show that takes a while to get fully into gear, Miss Fortunate offers the genuine and heartbreaking picture of a young woman who finds it too hard to pick herself back up until O'Shea ends her piece on a hopeful and bright note, her grief accepted but not forgotten.